Faculty

Dr Rhonda Barovsky – Founder and main trainer of the international TEAM-CBT group. She has conducted many TEAM CBT trainings around the world. She is a Co-host of Dr. Burns’ weekly Feeling Good Podcast. She specializes in working with trauma, providing TEAM-CBT particularly to the patients who have experienced sexual abuse.

She began her career working at the San Francisco Rape Treatment Center, providing crisis counseling, individual therapy, group counseling and advocacy work with adult victims of sexual assault. She has transferred to San Francisco’s Youth Guidance Center where in addition to suicide assessments and crisis counseling, she researched clinical programs, wrote a successfully funded grant and established the San Francisco Juvenile Sex Offender Treatment Program, which she was director for 8 years. Rhonda established treatment protocols, conducted client assessments, clinically supervised staff, and provided individual and group therapy for adjudicated juvenile sex offenders. She helped to establish the California Coalition on Sexual Offending, a structured resource group for professionals working with persons involved in the commission of rape, child sexual abuse, incest, and other forms of sexual assault.

Following her work with juvenile sex offenders she spent over 25 years working within the mental health component of Family Law. She has conducted child custody mediation and evaluations, co-parenting therapy, reunification therapy, parent coordination and individual psychotherapy to adults and teens. She published four articles on issues related to mental health and family law, and presented at over 40 professional trainings and conferences.

In 2013 she earned a Doctorate in Forensic Psychology, and attended David Burns’ 4-Day Intensive Training on TEAM-CBT in South San Francisco, which changed her life professionally and personally. She slowly eased out of forensic work to focus solely on providing TEAM-CBT to patients who have experienced sexual abuse and other types of trauma, relationship issues, depression, anxiety.

She established and is one of the main instructors of the Wednesday TEAM-CBT international training group. She has traveled to India, Mexico City, and Poland to teach TEAM-CBT.

Dr Heather Clague–  psychiatrist, and level 5 certified TEAM therapist and trainer with a private practice in psychotherapy and psychopharmacology.  She has conducted TEAM CBT trainings around the world. She is a co-leader of the ‘Feeling Great’ book club and TEAM CBT weekly consultation groups.

She graduated summa cum laude from Yale University and from the University of California Medical School as a member of the Alpha Omega Alpha honor society.  She received a Masters in Public Health from UC Berkeley with a University fellowship. She completed her psychiatry training at the University of California San Francisco where she was an Anchor Attending for medical students and where she received the Alexander Simon award for excellence in teaching.

Heather teaches extensively in the US and internationally in Mexico, India, and Poland, and is a sought-after presenter to teach the Five Secrets of Effective Communication in medical settings.   She co-leads the enthusiastically received Feeling Great Book Club, the TEAM-ACT workgroup, and the Monday night TEAM case consultation group, is a faculty member at All Things CBT, and leads groups that offer deep practice in the Five Secrets of effective communication.  She has been featured on the Feeling Good Podcast and her writing has been published on psychotherapy.net.

In addition to her work as a TEAM therapist and trainer, Heather provides psychiatric consultation in the public hospital system in Alameda County. She is the founder and director of Fully Present Improv.

Dr Jill T. Levitt – licensed clinical psychologist who has been conducting therapy sessions for almost 20 years. Director of Training at Feeling Good Institute. Co-leader in the therapist training group at Stanford with Dr. David Burns.

In her practice she has helped clients live happier and more fulfilling lives by overcoming social anxiety, panic attacks, worrying, stress, OCD, PTSD, depression, relationship problems, and other common challenges.

She teaches Cognitive Behavioral Therapy at Stanford’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences , and serves as a consultant to psychiatry residents, local practitioners and graduate students, both individually and in weekly seminars at Stanford.

She trained hundreds of community clinicians in treatments for anxiety related to 9/11. She also directed a study on post-traumatic stress disorder treatment, and was responsible for training and supervising other therapists.

She received a B.A. in Psychology with honors from the University of Pennsylvania, and earned her M.A. and Ph.D. from Boston University, where she conducted clinical research on cognitive behavioral therapy for panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and social anxiety at the Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders. She completed a 2 year post-doctoral fellowship at NYU, focusing on anxiety and trauma treatment.

Dr Levitt has published research on treatment for panic disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Dr Leigh Harrington – psychiatrist, psychotherapist, trainer, coach and Level 5 Certified Master TEAM Therapist and Trainer.  She specializes in helping individuals overcome their fears – especially social anxiety. She has been an invited guest speaker in various international training groups, especially sought after for her work in social anxiety, shame attacking, and business applications.

Dr. Harrington completed her residency training at Stanford University Medical Center where she was Chief Resident, awarded Resident of the Year for her dedication to the residency program, and trained closely with Dr. David Burns.  She studied public health and medical administration, receiving her Masters of Public Health and Masters of Health Services Administration from the University of Michigan.  In addition to her private practice, where she specializes in helping individuals overcome their fears – especially social anxiety – and live their fullest lives, she works as a psychiatrist at Yolo County where she served as Medical Director for five years.  She has led training groups in TEAM-CBT since 2009.  She is the founder of TEAMTherapyTraining.com, has created her own courses and continues to develop courses for therapists, business professionals, and individuals that focus on interpersonal skills, personal empowerment through conquering fears, and mastering the implementation of desired habits and the habit of self-belief.

She has been on the faculty of All Things CBT and serves as Volunteer Clinical Faculty at the University of California, Davis where she has taught CBT and TEAM-CBT since 2010.

Dr Mark Noble – special guest –  the most unusual and surprising member of our faculty. One of the pioneering figures in the field of stem cell biology. He is currently the Martha M. Freeman Distinguished Professor of Genetics at the University of Rochester. Fascinated by the effectiveness of TEAM CBT used by Dr. Burns, he started researching the scientific basis of the method.

During his research career, Dr. Noble obtained his Ph.D. from Stanford University (1977), was a postdoctoral fellow at University College London (1977-1981), a faculty member at the Institute of Neurology in London (1981-1985), the Head of Cellular Neurobiology at the London branch of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research (1985-1995), and Professor of Oncology and Head of the Brain Tumor Program at the Huntsman Cancer Institute and Dept. Oncological Sciences, Univ. of Utah Health Sciences Center (1995-2000). Since 2000, he has been Professor of Genetics and Neuroscience at the University of Rochester, where he also was director of the Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine Institute.

Dr. Noble’s involvement in the TEAM CBT community actually was motivated by discoveries in his laboratory on a group of lysosomal storage disorders, which are rare and devastating pediatric genetic diseases.   The discoveries of his team led to novel approaches to preventing or decreasing the damage associated with these disorders, but also led to the discovery that a large number of clinically approved medications could convert mild lysosomal dysfunction to severe dysfunction. Two of the agents on this list are widely used antidepressants, which led Dr. Noble to become interested in learning more about current treatments for depression.

His interests in the treatment of depression led Dr. Noble to contact David Burns to learn more about TEAM CBT, and to a unique role for Dr. Noble in the TEAM CBT community. At his first visit with Dr. Burns, at Stanford University, Dr. Noble was so surprised by the rapid emotional recoveries obtained with TEAM CBT – and particularly the ability of Dr. Burns and his colleagues to obtain recovery from severe depression, anxiety or related disorders in a single two-hour therapy session – that he set out to try and understand TEAM CBT from the perspective of brain function. Recognizing that the current understanding of emotional challenges could not explain the ability of Dr. Burns and colleagues  to obtain rapid recovery in individuals who had not had benefit from years, and often decades, of psychotherapy and/or medications, Dr. Noble provided a series of organizing principles that help to understand how and why TEAM CBT is so effective. This research has been associated with the writing and free distribution (under Creative Commons licenses) of multiple guides to TEAM CBT that are used by therapists and their patients around the world.  These include A Brief Introduction to TEAM CBT, A Brain User’s Guide to TEAM CBT and Exploring the Daily Mood Log..  Dr. Noble also has recorded multiple podcasts with Drs. David Burns and Rhonda Barovsky, both of whom are teaching in the Warsaw-based training program for therapists who wish to learn TEAM CBT.  In addition, Dr. Noble was invited by Dr. Burns to contribute a chapter on the neuroscience of TEAM CBT for Feeling Great, which was the first time that Dr. Burns has invited an outside author to contribute to one of his books.

Dr Mariusz Wirga –  psychiatrist, psycho-oncologist, and cognitive-behavioral therapist and TEAM CBT trainer. Medical Director of Psychosocial Oncology at MemorialCare Todd Cancer Institute and the Chair of the Psychiatry Department at Long Beach Medical Center. Promoter of TEAM CBT in Poland. He specializes in working with oncological patients.

Mariusz trained extensively with the leaders and pioneers in the fields of cognitive-behavior therapy, psycho-oncology, mindfulness, lifestyle modification, behavior change, stress management, and cultivating well being. His mentors and teachers include Albert Ellis, Maxie C. Maultsby, Jr, O. Carl Simonton, Marsha Linehan, David Burns, Peter Fenner, Barbara Andersen, William Breitbart, Susan Michie, and Robert West. He lectures and conducts workshops on these subjects internationally. He is a Level 3 Advanced TEAM CBT Therapist certified by the Feeling Good Institute.

In 2004 he founded the Beat the Odds®: A Mind-Body Cancer Survivorship Program at MemorialCare Todd Cancer Institute in Long Beach.  Additionally, together with his wife Aleksandra Wirga, M.D., also a psychiatrist and psycho-oncologist, they conduct six-day retreats for cancer patients and their families based on the Beat the Odds Program.

Mariusz also developed the Boost the Odds Program – From Cancer Survivor to Life Thriver. It focuses on modifiable lifestyle cancer risk factors such as stress management, social support and communication, nutrition, physical exercise, sleep and rest, play and laughter, creative expression, and connection with nature in cancer survivors. More information  www.beat-the-odds.org or www.facebook.com/ibeattheodds.

Mariusz, with the faculty of 14 trainers from all over the world, organized the First TEAM CBT World Congress that took place 18-21 August, 2022 in Warsaw, Poland with participants coming not just from Poland and Ukraine, as initially dedicated but from as far away countries as the United States and India. The training was met with a very warm reception and sparked significant interest in TEAM CBT in this part of Europe.

His publications include:

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4333-0117